‘Independence Day’ Team Reveals Studio Reaction to Will Smith: ‘Cast Black Guy, Kill Foreign Box Office’

“Independence Day” director Roland Emmerich and producer-writer Dean Devlin celebrated the film’s 25th anniversary this week by participating in The Hollywood Reporter’s oral history of the alien invasion blockbuster. While discussing the film’s casting, the duo recalled studio executives at 20th Century Fox refusing their pitch to cast Will Smith in the lead role due to the racist Hollywood ideology that audiences in foreign markets don’t show up to movies led by Black actors.
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